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Sunday, December 28, 2014

The Intimate Idea of the One Vehicle

.

In the transplantation of Buddhism to the West, the One
Vehicle of the Buddha Dharma is often misunderstood.The terms “the West” and “westernization” are
admittedly problematic generalizations in themselves, but are handy labels for
the cultural world view into which Buddha Dharma is now being transplanted from
the Eastern countries of Japan, Korea, Vietnam, China, Tibet, Burma, Thailand,
Cambodia, Sri Lanka, etc.This
accommodation, acclimation, and acculturation process is sometimes called the
modernization or naturalization of Buddhism, and when focused on Buddha Dharma
in the USA
is often called the Americanization of Buddhism.

Western/American Buddhists need to address justifications of their existence as a distinct group within Western/American culture. The cultural conditions of India were not the same as the cultural conditions of China, Korea, and Japan, and none of them are the same as the cultural conditions of the West. It is necessary for Western Buddhists to reach some form of accommodation with Western values and sociopolitical structures and functions in order for Buddha Dharma to take root and thrive in the Western cultural ground. In China, the two main streams of cultural conditions and values that Buddhism had to address were Confucianism and Daoism. In the West, the two main streams of cultural conditions and values that Buddhists must address are the Judeo-Christian God-based theologies and scientific materialism.

On the one hand, we in the West need to engage in the two-pronged hermeneutical process of first identifying the teaching of the Buddha Dharma and then correctly interpreting it. On the other hand, we need to make accommodations to Western languages and perspectives that allow for the transplantation of Buddhist ideas without corrupting their meaning. Already in the last 50 years, we have seen examples of both successful and corrupted accommodation strategies. In my view, one of the most promising bridges for transplanting Buddha Dharma to the West and making sense of the apparently confusing variety of Buddhist schools and practices is the One Vehicle.

To understand, appreciate, and support this process of
transplantation, we should look at the history and prior experience of how Buddhism came to
the East (i.e., to China)
from what was considered their West in India. And to understand how the
Chinese made sense of the confusing diversity of Buddhism we must have an appreciation of how the
Chinese "analyzed the teachings" (panjiao) as they received them in
unorganized and disorganized piecemeal translations from missionaries of different lineages and sects. However, none of the
Chinese analyses of the teachings (panjiao) can be understood without
appreciating the role of the One Vehicle.Likewise, on the other hand, all of the limitations and shortcomings of
the traditional Chinese taxonomical systems for the teachings may be understood
by their mistakes related to the One Vehicle.

The Chinese correctly understood that the One Vehicle
teaching was the orienting principle that make sense out of the diversity of
the Buddhist teachings, however, they still fell prey to the human weakness of
sectarianism. This is especially ironic because the One Vehicle movement itself was formed
as the response to Buddhist sectarianism in India as exemplified by what was called "the 18 Schools." However, when the One
Vehicle came to China,
the Chinese commentarial masters all too often failed to fully appreciate the
One Vehicle and lost sight of the forest for seeing the trees.

So while they often, and correctly, saw the One Vehicle as
the "complete" or "perfect" (as in the perfection of a
circle) teaching, they failed to see and understand the One Vehicle's universal inclusiveness,
and instead they either took the One Vehicle as a separate teaching, distinguished from the
other vehicles or took the One Vehicle as primarily attached to one Sutra and then
claimed that that their favorite one Sutra was the superior sutra to all
others.Both these ideas are deeply
mistaken. Thus, analyses of the teachings were created that gave "pride of
place" to the Lotus Sutra, the Nirvana Sutra, the Flower Garland Sutra
(Avatamsaka, Huayan), etc. But by putting a single One Vehicle Sutra above the other
One Vehicle Sutras, these systems revealed that they really did not understand
the purport of the One Vehicle.

Also, some of the commentators argued that the One Vehicle
was a "fourth vehicle" that was separate from and in addition to the
Three Vehicles. This, too, was a grave mistake.To understand the One Vehicle is to see that all the One Vehicle Sutras
are equal without any of them being above the others, and to realize that
the One Vehicle is not a separate vehicle but is the perspective that includes
and embraces the Three Vehicles harmoniously.

Of the Chinese developers of the panjiao analyses of the
teachings, only Guifeng Zongmi (780-841)developed a classification system that understood the One
Vehicle as a nonsectarian movement that was the essence of the Zen, and the Zen motto of not
being established on writings. Thus, his analysis of the teachings was not
established on one sutra or another, but on the teachings as they were
organized across and throughout the sutras.Zongmi was
both a master in the Huayan school and the Zen school, so he was uniquely
situated to see that the One Vehicle was not solely appropriated to the Huayan
Sutra (the Flower Garland Sutra) but was the essential teaching presented in
all the One Vehicle Sutras such as the Flower Garland, Lotus, Nirvana,
Lankavatara, Samdhinirmocana, etc.Bodhidharma, the ancestral anchor of all of the Zen teaching lineages
was said to have brought the "One Vehicle lineage of Southern India" to China for the
correct understanding of the Lankavatara Sutra.

Especially troubling within some of the systems for
analyzing the teachings was the creation of a spurious category called the
"separate" teaching of the One Vehicle. This idea proclaimed that the
One Vehicle was a fourth vehicle wholly separate from the Three Vehicles of
disciples, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas. Most, but not all, of the Huayan commentators
adopted this erroneous view, however, due to his Zen training Zongmi did not.

I recently translated a small section of theSamdhinirmocana Sutra on this point. TheSamdhinirmocana Sutra is a One Vehicle Sutra
that is often mistakenly called a "Yogacara Text" because it was
adopted by the Chinese Yogacara proponents who appropriated certain sections of the Sutra to their Yogacara doctrines.In this Sutra, the Buddha engages in questions and answers with ten
bodhisattvas including Subhuti, Maitreya, Avalokitesvara, and Manjusri.In the section of exchange with
Avalokitesvara, Avalokitesvara asks about the One Vehicle teaching because it
seems that the Buddha is saying all the prior teachings are within the One
Vehicle and not separate from it.The
Buddha makes it clear that the vehicle of the disciples and the vehicle of the
bodhisattvas are themselves not really separate, but only appear separate
because of the way they are taught. Here's my translation:

~~~

Avalokitesvara bodhisattva again addressed the Buddha and
declared, “World Honored One. it is such that the World Honored One articulates
as if the Listener-disciple Vehicle and again as if the Great Vehicle are only
the One Vehicle. What is the intimate idea of this?”

Buddha told Avalokitesvara bodhisattva saying, “Good Son, it
is as if from within the Listener-disciple Vehicle, that I proclaim and
articulate the own-nature of every kind of the various things (dharmas), and
actually designate the five clusters (skandhas), or the internal six loci, or the external
six loci, and such are the classifications. Then accordingly, from within the
Great Vehicle, I articulate that Dharma that is identical with the One
Dharma-realm and identical with the One Universal Principle.

"For that reason, I do not articulate that the nature of the
vehicles is different, or from within them that there are such words by which
the false meanings may give rise to discriminating one classification [of
vehicle] as aggrandized and one classification as diminished. Or again, that
from various vehicles, different principles of the Way are designated that
oppose each other and thus are unfolded to convey and generate disputations. So
within this is what is called the intimate idea.” (T16n0676_p0708a13 to a21)

~~~

[Note: The internal six loci are the six "places" of sensory reception, and the external six loci are the six "places" of sensory data, and together the six inner loci and six outer loci are the twelve loci, the twelve ayatanas (十二處) or locations within the field of the mind.]

Thus, all the commentators who argued that the One Vehicle
was a separate teaching of the principles of the Way were in direct opposition
to the actual One Vehicle and specifically to this sutra's presentation of the One
Vehicle. The One Vehicle does not pump up the Mahayana (Great Vehicle) and
deflate the teachings of the Two Vehicles of Arhats (fully accomplished
disciples) and pratyekabuddhas. If anyone claims that the Great Vehicle is
enlarged by the One Vehicle, while the vehicle of the disciples and Arhats is
lessened by the One Vehicle, then that person does not perceive or receive the intimate idea of the
One Vehicle.